


Neverland

by GE72



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Murder Mystery, Police Procedural, Psychological Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:22:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15099554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GE72/pseuds/GE72
Summary: (Season 8) Twenty two years ago, a ten year old girl named Wendy was kidnapped but escaped her captor. Now, the same man has kidnapped her daughter...but he thinks he has taken Wendy. BAU agents Reid and Rossi are on the scene to help her and the police bring her daughter back from an unsub who, because of his mental condition, never grew up.





	1. Chapter 1

The last phone call that twenty-one-year-old Camille Paulson ever made was to her family.

She was babysitting Wednesday night at the Rodgers home; her charge, the cutest ten year old in the Mandarin neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida, was sound asleep upstairs.

“Hi Mom,” Camille said into her cell phone. “I’m fine….I’m here babysitting the Rodgers’ kid….They went out, you know, dinner and a movie. I guess it’s date night for them….Don’t worry, mom….They said they would be back by nine thirty…I know mom….Thanks, talk to you later.” 

Camille clicked off her cell phone, and resumed reading her copy of “The Hunger Games,” as she sat down on the sofa in the downstairs living room. 

It was just after nine o’clock, as the sun was setting on the Florida city on this June night. Darkness was beginning to settle over the area as people were beginning to turn in for the evening.

Camille had just turned a page when she heard something from upstairs.

“Hey, are you awake up there?” she called out. There was no response. Camille went back to reading her book.

Then there was another noise.

Camille put her book down. “Okay, I’m coming up there!” she announced, as she began to head upstairs to the child’s room. 

The child’s bedroom was first room on the left of the staircase, across from the parents’ master bedroom. Camille immediately saw the door was slightly ajar. When she put the Rodgers’ daughter asleep, she had closed the door on the way out.

She quietly reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open. She walked inside.

“Are you awake?” she asked as she made her way to the bed….which was empty.

Camille gasped. She looked over to the bedroom window. The drapes wavered enough for her know the window was open, way too open.

Camille began to turn to head out of the room, but someone grabbed her, clamping their hand over her mouth. She tried to scream but the hand was firmly over her mouth, muffling any sound that was coming out.

As Camille struggled to break free from the person’s grasp, she saw something come up in front of her. It was shiny, silvery, curved like the letter ‘J’, and attached to where a right hand should have been. She realized, only too late, what it was, as it was jabbed into her neck….

**************************************

At a conference room inside the Omni Jacksonville Hotel in downtown, the seminar was almost over. The law enforcement officials had listened attentively for over two hours on the benefits of the analysis of criminal behavior by two of the foremost experts in the field, both agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

One was David Rossi. An agent for over 20 years, he retired for ten years before coming back to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, the branch of the FBI he helped create. The BAU was to help local law enforcement to identify and apprehend serial killers. In the interim of his retirement, he wrote books on criminal behavior, hostage negotiation, and other aspects of crime solving, becoming wealthy in the process. But his return to the field six years ago, prompted by one case that haunted him, now solved, also brought him back a renewed sense of purpose in his life.

The other was Doctor Spencer Reid, many years junior to Rossi. Reid looked like and was the textbook nerd, using his mind to aid in the capture of many criminals. A certified genius with an IQ of 187, he had graduated high school at the age of twelve, and college at the age of sixteen. He had Ph.D’s in mathematics, engineering, and chemistry, and degrees in psychology and sociology. Though he’d been an agent since he was 22 years old, his bookish, sometimes disheveled look, didn’t make him look like an agent, especially since he was not the physically adept agent in the field, but that made suspects underestimate him.

“…and that is how unsubs can be tripped up by their own ego,” Reid said to the audience in his conclusion. “They believe they are so infallible they cannot see past their initial success to their potential faults.”

The audience politely applauded. Soon they intermingled with each other and with the agents, getting a little bit more knowledge for themselves.

Soon the room dispersed, as did Reid and Rossi.

“Tomorrow, kid, we’ll be back home and relaxing,” Rossi said.

“If you can call working in the office on the paperwork relaxing,” Reid pointed out. He checked his watch. It was close to ten o’clock.

“True.”

“Excuse me,” someone called out to them. “Agent Rossi! Agent Reid!” The two agents stopped, as a man in a suit came up to them rather hurriedly.

“What can we do for you?” Rossi asked.

“I’m Detective Jim Dearden with the Jacksonville Police,” he said. “Your presence is requested by my boss. There’s been a kidnapping.”

“Do you know the details?” Reid asked.

“All I know is that my captain said it was weird.” He looked at the agents. “Do you deal in weird?”

“We’ve seen some real strange stuff,” said Rossi, “so I guess we deal in weird.”

“Good. I’ll take you to the crime scene.”

Soon, the agents were driven in a late model Chevrolet sedan to a suburban neighborhood south of the downtown area. The lights and skyline still could be seen, as the car drove over a bridge over a canal into the Mandarin neighborhood.

The house was a two story structure, similar to all the other houses in the neighborhood. Except there were numerous police cars, a vehicle from the medical examiner’s office, and a couple of news vans out front. There was yellow police tape around the front of the house.

The car stopped and Reid, Rossi, and Detective Dearden got out. They walked up the driveway, lifted the crime scene tape up, and went into the house through the open garage door. 

Once inside the house, they were greeted by another plain clothes policeman, blond and in his forties.

“Thanks for bringing them,” he said to the detective. “Gentlemen, I’m Captain Kevin Innes. We got one missing ten year old, and a dead babysitter.”

“Your detective said this was ‘weird,’” Reid said. “How so?”

“Follow me.”

Innes led the agents upstairs to the girl’s bedroom. Inside, there was a bed with a pink theme – blankets, bedsheets, pillows, and a comforter, all disturbed as if someone had been taken in the middle of being asleep. There was a dresser and a desk next to each other along the wall, with a corkboard propped up on the desk. On another wall was a poster of the group One Direction (both Reid and Rossi had no idea who they were). The window across from the bed was open, as evidenced by the drapes and curtains being moved by a slight breeze.

And then there was the dead body.

The babysitter was next to the closet on the floor, on her back, and with one arm sprawled out, and the other reaching up to her own neck, where the fatal wound was. A pool of blood was around the upper part of the body.

“This is Camille Paulson, the babysitter,” Innes said. “She was a student at Jacksonville University. She was babysitting to make some money over the summer. The parents found her when they came inside.”

“What caused the wound?” asked Rossi, as Reid knelt down and examined the corpse.

“We’re not sure yet,” Innes replied. “It wasn’t a cut across the throat. Something dug into her neck and was pulled out, severing the carotid artery. She was dead within seconds.” 

“How did the kidnappers get inside?” Rossi asked.

“Put a ladder up against the window, which was already open,” Innes replied. “Wait, you said kidnappers?”

“This looks like a two person job,” Rossi said. “One takes the kid, and the other is a lookout.” He pointed at the dead babysitter. “One of them did that.” 

“We’re still waiting for the weird,” Reid said as he got up.

Innes led them back downstairs and into the kitchen. A couple of more uniformed officers and crime scene techs were there.

“Stevens, do you have that ransom note?” Innes asked one of the techs. He was handed a clear crime scene evidence bag. “Here’s the note,” he said to the agents.

The ransom note was in the clear bag. It was written on what seemed to be aged, tattered parchment paper. The words were written in an old, calligraphic style and in black ink. It read:

_“I have your precious little Wendy. You can have her back when I’m done with her.”_

“This was written in an Olde English style of calligraphy,” Reid said. “But some of the letters he wrote aren’t in the correct style. He’s made mistakes.”

“This unsub seems to think himself he’s a pirate of some kind,” Rossi said. 

“Not a very good one,” Reid said. “The paper is obviously parchment, but the bond is too thick for this to be old. It’s obviously been singed on the edges to give it an aged look.”

“This kind of qualifies as weird,” Rossi said. 

“Let’s talk to the parents,” Innes said. “The father’s name is Dan Rodgers.” 

He led them to the living room. On the sofa, the husband was trying to comfort his crying wife.

“Who would do this to us?” she sobbed to her husband. “Where’s my little girl?!”

“Mister and Mrs. Rodgers,” Captain Innes said. The couple looked up. “This is Agent Rossi and Agent Reid with the FBI.”

“We’d like to ask you about tonight,” Rossi said. “Just take us through from when you got home.”

The husband took a breath to compose himself. “Well,” Dan Rodgers said, “me and my wife got home just after nine o’clock. It was our date night. When we got inside, we called out for Camille, but there was no answer. We went upstairs to our daughter’s room and we found her, Camille…. We also found the note.”

“Please, you have to find our daughter,” Mrs. Rodgers pleaded. “She’s only ten years old. I don’t want her to go through something like this.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Rodgers,” Reid said assuredly. “We’ll do our best to bring Wendy back.” 

Mrs. Rodgers looked at the agents. “Katie,” she said.

“Katie?” Rossi asked.

“My daughter’s name is Katie!” She then said, “I think whoever did this was after me!”

“You? What do you mean?” Reid asked.

“He was after me!” she cried. _“I’m Wendy!”_


	2. Chapter 2

_“You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end, she grew up of her own free will, a day quicker than the other girls.”_ – J.M. Barrie 

_____________________________________________________________

“It was 1991. I was ten years old, just like Katie,” Wendy Rodgers said. “Me and my parents lived in Charleston. My dad, John Dalton, was stationed at the naval base there, before he started work at the Navy Department. My mom worked at a local mall. I had an older brother, Michael, and a younger sister, Lori. Our house was near the Cooper River.

“Anyway, one night, I had trouble sleeping. This was in July, and it was still kind of humid. I got up, went to the bathroom, and went back to bed. About ten minutes passed, when I heard this noise. I tried to sit up, but suddenly, there was someone holding something against my face, and I passed out. The police later told me it was most likely chloroform.”

Wendy Rodgers was sitting next to her husband, Dan, as Reid and Rossi, along with Captain Innes, sat down across from them. She had sandy blonde hair, brown eyes, and in her mid-thirties, though this was making her age quickly.

“When I woke up, I was in some strange room. I remember it was a cabin, because of all the wood walls that looked like logs,” she continued. “It was kind of dark. I was in a bed, and I still had my pajamas on.

“A man came into the room and asked me if I was okay. I told him I wanted to go home. He said I couldn’t go home yet. Then another man came into the room and told him to get out. They both left the room.”

“Were there any windows in the room?” Reid asked.

“None,” Wendy Rodgers replied. She continued her story. “I don’t know how long I was there in that cabin. They only let me out to use the bathroom.”

“Did they feed you?” Rossi asked.

“They did,” Wendy replied. “A couple of sandwiches and milk, that’s all.”

“Do you remember what either man looked like?” Reid asked.

“The one man who talked to me,” she replied, “he had blond hair, kind of scruffy. I didn’t know how old he was at the time. Everybody was over the age of thirty as far as I was concerned. The other person, he had dark hair and trying to grow a beard. He was older than the other man, I know that. He also seemed to me he was always holding a hook in his hand.”

“A hook?” asked Rossi.

“I know it sounds weird,” Mrs. Rodgers said. “But he had a hook in his hand. It wasn’t like a pirate’s hook like in a fairy tale. He held it in his hand, his right hand.” 

“Maybe this guy really did think he was a pirate,” Innes remarked.

“One time, he was alone in the room with me,” Mrs. Rodgers said. “He looked at me, and said something about me and him going to Neverland.”

“Neverland?” asked Reid.

“Forget pirate,” Innes said. “He was in another world altogether.”

“So how did you escape?” Rossi asked Mrs. Rodgers.

“This one time, they let me use the bathroom,” Wendy said. “There was a window above the sink inside there. After I used the toilet, I turned on the faucet to wash my hands, but I let it run so they wouldn’t hear me try to open the window. I stepped up on the sink and managed to open the latch to the window. I opened it and fell out the other side. I got up and started running. It was almost nightfall. I was running down this trail, and I just kept on going until I reached this paved road. 

“I stopped for a second, then chose to run in one direction down the road,” she continued. “After a couple of seconds, I heard this car. I didn’t know if it was them, so I ran into the bushes and hid there. The car sped past me, I was sure it was them. After a while, I got out and started running again down the road. I kept going as far as I could. I came upon this intersection in the road. There were trees all over the place. I heard another car coming. I hid in the bushes again, and the car stopped. I heard the car door open and two people talking. One of them was angry. Then I heard them drive off.

“I had no idea where I was,” she said. “I picked a road and started going down it. I don’t know how long I was on the road, but after a while, I was tired. From what I could tell, I just fell down. Next thing I know, I’m in a hospital.”

“She told me the story before,” Dan Rodgers said. “A state trooper found her. She was on Kiawah Island, southwest of Charleston.”

“I was gone for four days,” Wendy Rodgers said. “My parents said there was no ransom demand. They were so freaked out by my kidnapping. They were so relieved when the police found me.”

“Did they find the kidnappers?” Reid asked.

“The police searched the area where I was found,” Wendy Rodgers said. “They found the cabin I was held in.” She stopped, then said, “They found one of the kidnappers, the blond haired one. He was dead.”

“Partner probably got mad or panicked that you got away, so he killed him,” Rossi pointed out.

“Anything else you remember?” Reid asked.

“No, that’s all there was too it,” Wendy Rodgers replied. “I thought it was all over…” She began to tear up again. “…until tonight.” Her husband put his arm around her and she quietly cried.

Rossi and Reid got up from the sofa, as did Captain Innes. They stepped away so the Rodgers wouldn’t hear them.

“There was no ransom demand for Wendy back then,” Rossi said. “If it is the same guy, he might not want ransom, especially when he finds out he has the wrong girl.” 

“By twenty-two years,” Reid added.

“I’m still going to put a trap and trace on the phone line, just in case,” Innes said.

Reid checked his watch. It was ten-thirty at night. “I wonder if Garcia is still awake?”

“What are you going to ask her?” Rossi asked.

“Find out any more about Wendy Rodgers’ kidnapping,” Reid replied, as he took out his cell phone. He dialed the cell number of their technical analyst, the ever eccentric Penelope Garcia, back in Quantico.

The phone rang twice before there was an answer.

“Hello?”

“Garcia? Are you home?”

“The office of the Empress of Quantico is closed for the evening. Please leave a message – “

“It’s an emergency.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s been a kidnapping.” Reid quickly filled her in on what had happened.

“Oh my God!” Garcia said. On the other end, Reid could hear noises of someone moving around. “Let me get my laptop turned on!” There were more noises, and then another voice, undiscernible, saying something to Garcia.

Rossi noticed the strange look on Reid’s face as he waited on the phone. “Problem?”

“I think I interrupted something.”

He then heard Garcia’s voice back on the line. “Sorry about that,” she said. “What do you need?”

“The original kidnapping case from 1991,” Reid replied. “It happened in Charleston, South Carolina. Victim’s name was Wendy Dalton. She was rescued. Her daughter’s kidnapper could be the same guy.”

He could hear Garcia typing away. “Okay, the original file was digitalized, lucky for us,” she said. “According to this, she was found four days after her kidnapping. Police found one of her kidnappers dead. His name was Peter Wendell, age twenty-eight. Previous record for assault, possession. Probably just hired help. Police couldn’t turn up anything on the second guy.”

“No other suspects?”

“None, zip, zilch.”

“Okay, try to find some common link between that kidnapping and this one,” Reid said.

“Got it and – “ There was an uneasy silence on the other end of the line, then Garcia said, “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Also in the file, there were two other kidnappings in Charleston before Wendy Dalton’s,” Garcia replied. “Both boys, ages nine and twelve. No ransom call made in both cases.”

“What happened?” Reid asked, though he had a feeling what the answer was.

“Both boys were found around the Charleston area a few days later in each case. Both dead.”

Rossi could see the worried look on Reid’s face to know the answer wasn’t good.

“I hope you find her fast,” Garcia said. “Should I tell the others?”

Reid asked Rossi, “Should we call Hotch?”

“Not just yet,” Rossi replied. “Let’s see what happens next. We’ll call in the morning.”

“We’ll let you know,” Reid said to Garcia. “Look for any connection between the kidnappings.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks. Oh, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Tell Kevin we said ‘hi.’”

On the other end, he could hear Penelope’s boyfriend respond, “How could he tell?”

Reid said, “Goodnight Garcia.”

***************************************

Ten year old Katie Rodgers lay asleep on the cot as the two men talked.

“We got the wrong girl!”

“No, that is Wendy!”

“For cryin’ out loud, look at her. That is not her!”

“It’s Wendy!”

“It’s not! Let’s just cut our losses and go!”

“No! We’re keeping her. I lost her once, I’m not losing her again.”

He looked at the sleeping Katie. It had been two hours since they had taken her. He reached out and touched her arm with the implement that was now part of him. 

“Sleep my child. Soon, we’ll be in Neverland.”


	3. Chapter 3

“We just set up the trap and trace line,” said Captain Innes. “Now we wait.”

“I don’t think he’ll call,” Rossi said. “But it never hurts to be safe.” He went over to Reid, who was sitting with the Rodgers. 

“It’s waiting game now, kid,” Rossi said to him. 

“So now what?” Reid asked.

“We can stay here and wait for the call, which I don’t think will happen,” Rossi said. “Or we can go back to the hotel and Innes will call us if there’s any news.”

“I vote for the latter.”

Rossi agreed. He informed Innes of their decision, and Innes agreed to let them know if there was a ransom call. He instructed Dearden to escort the two agents back to the Omni Jacksonville Hotel. It was close to midnight when they returned to the hotel.

“See you in the morning,” Rossi said, as he and Reid checked back into their rooms.

****************************************

It was seven thirty when Reid woke up the following morning. In deliberate fashion, he showered, brushed his teeth, and put on his clothes.

He planned on getting the local newspaper downstairs in the lobby and eat breakfast. He opened his room door and was greeted by a sight he didn’t expect.

“Morning, pretty boy!”

“Morgan, what are you doing here?”

Derek Morgan, the BAU’s pre-eminent alpha male, gave Reid his trademark smile. “We landed half an hour ago,” he said. “So, you and Rossi caught a kidnapping case?”

“We weren’t planning on calling you,” Reid said. “How’d you find out?”

“Garcia told us last night. The rest of us are downstairs.”

Sure enough, the rest of the Behavioral Analysis Unit – Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer Jareau, and Alex Blake – was downstairs in the lobby. Rossi was with them.

“Thanks for joining us,” greeted J.J., as she was better known. In addition to being a profiler, the blonde haired Jareau also handled the press briefings when they needed the public’s help in gathering leads. 

“Did you call them?” Reid asked Rossi.

“I just came down to the lobby for a newspaper and coffee, and they were already here,” Rossi said. 

“Does Captain Innes know they’re here?”

“The chief of police called Innes for a status report on the kidnapping,” Hotchner replied in his straight forward manner, “and when the chief heard you two were already here, the chief informed us this morning.”

“Plus, Garcia informed us as well,” J.J. said.

“So, have there been any new developments?” Blake asked.

“None since last night,” Rossi replied. “The police put a trace on the phone, but since then, nothing.” He and Reid summarized the case to the others, as people in the lobby bustled about checking in and out.

“Anything else you can tell us about the kidnapper?” Hotchner asked.

“He thinks he’s a pirate,” Reid replied. He recounted about the note left in the bedroom. 

“A hook may have killed Camille Paulson,” he added. “The wound was a jab into the neck that looked like it was pulled out.”

“So we have a kidnapper who not only thinks he’s a pirate, but also he believes he grabbed the same girl from over twenty years ago,” Hotchner said.

“Do we think he already knows he has the wrong girl?” J.J. asked.

“If he does, then we know the answer to the next question,” Rossi replied. 

It was a question none of them wanted to ask. 

“So what’s the plan?” Morgan asked.

“Me and Alex will go to the police station,” Hotchner said. “The chief is expecting us. Morgan, you and J.J. go to the morgue, find out more about the victim. I’ll call Garcia to find any unsolved kidnappings between Charleston and here over the last twenty two years. Dave, you and Reid go back to the house, in case there is a call, and maybe get more info from the parents.”

With that, the agents headed out.

***********************************

At the Duval County medical examiner’s office, Morgan and J.J. looked over the dead body of Camille Paulson and informed the doctor of their theory of how she was killed.

“A hook?” the coroner said. “That could cause the wound.”

“Any specific kind of hook?” Morgan asked.

“Well, from the size of the wound, no more than a half inch to an inch around in diameter,” the coroner replied. “Probably no bigger than seven inches in length, no bigger than the hand itself.”

“Maybe it’s a prosthetic,” J.J. suggested. “I know Mrs. Rodgers said her kidnapper was holding the hook, but she was just ten years old at the time. I’m erring on the side of caution.”

“If it was a prosthetic, there would be a lot easier for the unsub to make that kind of wound,” Morgan said. 

“I wonder how many people have a hook on their prosthetic hand or arm,” J.J. wondered aloud.

“Let’s find out.” Morgan dialed up Garcia back in Quantico.

“Good morning, my sweet,” she greeted over the phone.

“Hey, baby girl. Look up people who have artificial and prosthetic hands equipped with a hook here in the Jacksonville area,” Morgan said.

“Give me a sec or two,” Garcia replied. He could hear her type furiously away on her keyboard. “They still make hooks for prosthetics?”

“I always thought it would be a popular option.”

“Until you had an itch to scratch. Okay, here we are. There are five people with hooks for their hand in Jacksonville.”

“Anyone with it on their right hand? That would be the most likely spot.”

More typing. “Sorry, all of them.”

“Wait a minute,” Morgan said. “See if any them have a single hook, not the typical claw hook.”

“There’s one,” Garcia said. “His name is Ronald Vashon. Sending you an address now.”

“Thanks baby girl.”

***********************************

It was just after ten o’clock when Reid and Rossi returned to the Rodgers house. Captain Innes wasn’t there, but Detective Dearden was.

“Still no call,” he told the agents. 

The agents went into the living room. Both Dan and Wendy Rodgers were up and sitting in there. They were just as worried now as they were then.

“Why won’t they call?” Wendy Rodgers asked them. “He must have realized by now that he’s made a mistake.”

“We have to be patient, Mrs. Rodgers,” Rossi assured.

“What if they don’t call?” Dan Rodgers asked. “Does that mean that she’s…..” He didn’t want to say the final word of that sentence.

“You can’t lose hope now,” Rossi said.

“Do you mind if we look through your daughter’s room?’ Reid asked.

The Rodgers looked at Reid. “What for?” Dan Rodgers asked. “What could be there that you think can help?”

“Maybe something that the unsub left behind that could give us more insight into his personality,” Reid replied.

Both parents said it was okay. As they went upstairs, Rossi asked Reid, “What do you really hope to find?”

“I hope to find something that proves that the unsubs really knew what they were doing,” Reid replied. “There’s no way they couldn’t know the girl wasn’t Wendy.”

“Maybe one of them knows it isn’t Wendy,” Rossi said, “and the other is convinced otherwise.”

“That’s crossed my mind.”

They entered Katie’s room. It was untouched from last night. There was a body outline on the floor from where Camille Paulson’s body was found, along with remnants of the blood pool.

Reid looked around the room. The window was still open from last night, as a breeze blew into the room, cooling off the inside. The screen on the window had been moved aside, probably from the outside by the unsubs.

“Okay, the unsubs break in,” Rossi said. “Both of them. They snatch up the girl, then hear the babysitter coming up the stairs. One gets Katie out the window, the other waits for Camille Paulson, and kills her.”

“Why not just knock her out?” Reid asked. “Why kill her at all?”

“The unsubs need time to get away,” Rossi replied. “If they just knocked her out, she could’ve awakened sooner than they wanted. Or they just panicked.” He then said, “We should have Garcia check for traffic cameras in the area.”

They looked around the room little more, then went back downstairs. Dearden was with the Rodgers in the living room.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers,” Rossi said, “do you think this could’ve been personal? Does anybody have a grudge against either of you?”

“No,” Dan Rodgers said, “I don’t know anybody who could do this.”

Rossi nodded. “Have you noticed anyone acting strange in the neighborhood?” Reid asked. “Someone you haven’t noticed before?”

“I don’t think so,” Wendy Rodgers replied. “Dan is a painter at the shipyard and I work as a secretary at Seminole High School. Katie’s school is a couple of blocks away and a friend brings her by after school at 3:30. Me and her go home together at four. But school’s been out for a couple of weeks, and I won’t be needed until early August.”

Rossi looked at Wendy Rodgers. “You said the kidnapper may have been looking for you,” he said. “Do you remember anything else about your ordeal? Like how the kidnapper acted? Did he say anything to you? Was there anything about his behavior that stood out?”

Wendy Rodgers just shook her head. “All the interaction I had was with the other guy, the one they found dead,” she replied. “I hardly had any contact with the other man.”

“What do you remember about him?” Reid asked. “Any little thing will help.”

“All I can remember is the hook he held,” Wendy Rodgers replied. 

“Left hand or right hand?”

“Right hand.”

“And it wasn’t a prosthetic?”

“No, he held it,” she insisted.

“Was he young? Old?” Reid asked.

Wendy Rodgers stopped and thought about it. “He was a little older than the other guy,” she replied, “but not by much. I’m sorry that’s all I know.”

Rossi’s cell phone rang. “Yeah, Hotch….Anything new?....Nothing new on this end…..Okay, we’ll be there.” He said to Reid, “Let’s go. We’re headed downtown.”


	4. Chapter 4

Alex Blake looked at the note left behind at the kidnapping scene, which was still in the evidence bag. 

“If the intent by the unsub to make us believe he was a pirate,” she said, “it failed.” Blake was with Hotchner at the Jacksonville Police Headquarters. The agents had set up in a conference room and were waiting for the others to return. “Reid was right. This note is fake and not just in the lettering.”

“How so?” Hotchner asked.

“His wording,” Blake said. “He wrote ‘I have your precious little Wendy. You can have her back when I’m done with her.’”

“Which words?”

“’Precious little’” Blake replied. In addition to being an agent, the most recently added to the unit, she was also a linguistics professor. “It’s as if he’s trying to convince us he really is a pirate. He’s trying too hard.”

“Maybe he convinced himself,” Hotchner said.

“And his last words, ‘when I’m done with her’,” she added. “It sounds like he’s already decided what his end game will be.”

Hotchner had Garcia send copies of the original kidnapping cases in Charleston and had them printed up earlier. “According to the original case files, Wendy Dalton was gone four days before she was found,” he stated. “The first two victims were found after four days as well, but both were already dead. In the case file, both male victims were killed the same way – their throats had torn open at the carotid artery by a hooked object.”

“Why the change in victimology?” Blake asked, as Morgan and J.J. came into the conference room. “He went from boys to a girl.”

“Probably a victim of opportunity in all three cases,” Morgan said. “He saw her and decided to have her.”

“Still, how does the unsub believe he has a girl who is now twenty two years older than when he last saw her?” Hotchner said.

“His mind cannot be that screwed up,” J.J. said. “But with the people we’ve dealt with, who knows how badly this person is damaged.”

“Maybe our unsub saw the girl,” Morgan suggested, “something in his memory kicked in, and decided she was Wendy from over twenty years ago.”

“I did see the pictures of Wendy and Katie,” Blake said. “There is some family resemblance, but how much of that played a part in the kidnapping?”

“Obsessional behavior,” Morgan said. “He must really believe Katie is Wendy.”

Rossi and Reid came into the conference room, followed by Captain Innes. “Any progress?” Innes asked.

“We’re trying to figure out what made our unsub think he kidnapped Wendy Rodgers when he actually has Katie Rodgers,” Blake replied. She looked at Reid. “Any ideas?”

The boy genius quickly thought about that. He finally replied, “Judging by the information and evidence we have, it’s either one of two things.”

“Which are?” Morgan asked.

“One, our unsub is really stupid.”

“Highly unlikely,” J.J. said. “Or?”

“As of now, I’m thinking our unsub has some kind of amnesia. Most likely, antero grade amnesia. He suffered some kind of trauma and he doesn’t have the ability to make new memories, but his long-term memory is still intact. If that’s the case, he can’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning but he can remember that he kidnapped Wendy Dalton twenty-two years ago and still thinks she’s ten years old.”

“So sometime in between now and when he kidnapped Wendy Dalton twenty-two years ago,” said Rossi, “he had some kind of injury that caused him to suffer amnesia that damaged his short term memory but kept his long term memory intact.”

“Someone who thinks he’s a pirate, complete with a hook on or held by hand,” said J.J.

After a couple of seconds, Hotchner said, “It’s time to give the profile.”

**********************************

Captain Innes gathered a number of his officers and detectives for the briefing by the agents. The briefing was held in the detectives’ bullpen.

Rossi began, “Our unsub is someone in his fifties, a person who is obsessed with Wendy Rodgers, believing she is still ten years old.”

“How is that possible?” Innes asked. 

“We believe our unsub is suffering from antero grade amnesia,” Reid replied. “His memory is stuck in the past and can’t make new memories. Because of that, he believes he kidnapped Wendy when he really has Katie.”

“And he won’t let her go until he is done with her,” Blake added, “at least according to the note he left behind for the parents.”

“So he plans on killing her?” asked one of the detectives.

“Most likely,” Morgan said. “But we have time, at least 72 hours to find her.”

“In the other cases in Charleston, the victims were all kept for four days before being found dead,” Hotchner said. “We don’t know why he kept them for such a period of time, or how he even selected them.”

“We don’t believe this man to be a registered pedophile but check the databases in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, just to be on the safe side,” J.J. added. 

“What about the hook?” Innes asked. “Is it a prosthetic?”

“It could be,” Morgan replied. “Wendy Rodgers says her kidnapper held the hook, it wasn’t a prosthetic. But we’re covering our bases to be sure. When you check for registered pedophiles, see how many have prosthetics, specifically a hook.”

“Our technical analyst back in Quantico gave us a name we’re going to check out here in Jacksonville,” J.J. said. “He’s not a registered pedophile but he is a person of interest.”

“He’s also being aided by someone, maybe younger, to help him,” added Rossi. “Someone who also helped him scope out his victim, to help gain trust or come across as friendly.”

The meeting broke up, and the agents, along with Captain Innes, reconvened in the conference room.

“Me and Rossi will visit Ronald Vashon,” Hotchner said to them, “and see if he is our unsub.”

After they left, J.J. said, “You know, this case, in a way, sounds like Peter Pan.”

“Peter Pan?” Reid asked. “How so?”

“A pirate with a hook for a hand, kidnaps a girl named Wendy,” J.J. replied, “or in this case, thinks she’s Wendy.”

“But there’s no Tinker Bell,” Blake pointed out.

“And there’s no Peter Pan,” Morgan added.

******************************************

Ronald Vashon lived on the west side of Jacksonville in a small cottage like house encased by a chain link fence. He was in the front yard, digging up weeds around some perennial rhododendrons, as Rossi and Hotchner drove up to his house.

“Ronald Vashon,” Hotchner called out as they got out of the SUV.

“That’s me.” Vashon got up and faced the agents.

“FBI.” Hotchner and Rossi identified themselves and showed him their badges. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.” They looked at Vashon’s hands as he got up. His left hand was holding a bunch of weeds he had pulled up from the ground, most likely with the hook on the prosthetic on his right.

“Nice hook,” Rossi pointed out.

“Courtesy of Uncle Sam,” Vashon said. “Ten years, U.S. Navy.”

“How’d you lose your hand?” Hotchner asked.

“Accident at the shipyard,” Vashon replied. “Crushed by a couple of hundred pound metal barrels. Left the navy on disability.”

Hotchner took out his cell phone and called up a picture of Katie Rodgers, e-mailed to him by Garcia. “Do you know this girl?”

Vashon looked at the photo. “No, sir.”

Hotchner showed him a photo of Wendy Rodgers. “What about her?”

“No, I don’t.” He seemed genuinely worried.

Next was a photo of Camille Paulson on the examining table in the coroner’s office. “What about her?”

“What the –“ Vashon was taken aback. “What’s this all about?”

“We’re investigating a kidnapping and murder,” Hotchner replied.

“Well, I didn’t kill anybody and I didn’t kidnap anybody!” Vashon exclaimed. “What makes you think that?”

“You seem to be the only one in Jacksonville with a single hook on his prosthetic,” Rossi said. “Not exactly common.”

“Well, it’s my personal choice,” Vashon said. “As you can see, it makes gardening easier.” He placed the weeds in a trash bag.

Rossi looked at the prosthetic hook. “Looks kind of new,” he pointed out.

“That’s because it is,” Vashon said. “My doctor at the VA replaced it last week. Old one outlived its usefulness.”

“One more thing,” Hotchner asked. “Where were you last night?”

“At a bar,” Vashon replied. “The Lobster Trap. Bartender knows me. You can check.”

“We will,” Hotchner said. “Let’s go.”

Hotchner and Rossi got back in the SUV and drove off.

“He’s not our unsub,” Rossi said. “But he’s hiding something.”

“He didn’t know about the murders,” Hotchner said. “But you’re right. He’s hiding something.”

*********************************

A couple of minutes later, Vashon went inside his house and made a phone call. The person on the other end picked up after the first ring.

“Hey, it’s me,” Vashon said. “I just got a visit from the FBI….They told me some girl got murdered and another kidnapped….For God’s sake, what the hell you get me into?”


	5. Chapter 5

“I’ve checked for similar kidnapping cases in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in the twenty two years between cases,” Garcia said from her office in Quantico. “No such luck there.”

“We just heard from Rossi and Hotchner,” Morgan said into his phone. The agents were inside a conference room inside the Jacksonville police station. “Donald Vashon isn’t our unsub. He was at a bar at the time of the murder and kidnapping.”

“Kidnappers, especially the sick twisted variety who take little kids,” Garcia said, “do not fall off the face of the earth without leaving some kind of paper trail. I also checked for traffic cameras in the area. Nothing caught my eye. Sorry.”

“Well, when we have more information for you, we’ll let you know,” Prentiss said. 

“Thanks,” the quirky computer analyst said. “By the way, how’s everyone holding up there in the Florida heat?”

“We’re inside right now, thank God for air conditioning,” Blake said. “We’re all here except for Reid.”

“Where is our residential genius?” Garcia asked.

“He went back to the Rodgers’ house,” J.J. replied. “I don’t know what he hopes to find there.”

*******************************

The unsub looked at his right hand, or at least, what used to be his right hand. The hook that was now there had been part of his life for so long. At least, some time, after Wendy got away that night in South Carolina.

He wasn’t always like this. His hand was fine, even that night he took Wendy. The first time he saw her, he knew he wanted her. He couldn’t do to her what he did to the others.

She was so beautiful, so sweet, so innocent. 

She didn’t have to run away from him. He would have never hurt her.

But now….she was back in his life again.

Yet he couldn’t shake this feeling. 

He went to the room where she was staying and opened the door. 

He looked at her. She was blonde, young, the way he remembered…but was it really her?

She was now awake. His friend had went out and got some food for all of them. He had given her a sandwich and a soda. The plate and the bottle were on the floor in front of her, both clean and empty.

She looked up at him, her eyes fixated on him, just as much as his were on her.

“Wendy?” he asked.

The girl looked at him before replying, “I’m Katie.”

“Wendy,” he repeated.

“I’m Katie!” the girl cried out. “Wendy’s my mommy!”

Mommy? How could this be? Was what his friend said true? How did she grow up? Why did she grow up? 

How could she grow up? I never did….

“Just be good and quiet,” he said to Katie. He left the room, as he heard the girl cry.

His friend came into the house. He had a look of happiness about him.

“Hey, Cap, good news,” he said. “We got a job. Next week.”

‘Cap’ looked at his friend. “I suppose that’s good.”

“But that girl has got to go –“

“No!” ‘Cap’ said to his friend. “She stays!”

“C’mon man, we got to get rid of her! She’s not Wendy!”

“I know! But I want Wendy…”

*******************************

Reid looked over the room of Katie Rodgers again. Something was bugging him. What made the unsub think he taking Wendy Rodgers instead of Katie Rodgers?

The room was decorated in pink and white colors, with the One Direction poster on the wall (he looked it up on the Internet, finding out they were a popular singing group). Stuffed unicorns and teddy bears on the bed. Typical stuff for a ten-year old. Then again, Reid didn’t really know what the typical ten-year old was into, considering he was a genius reading nineteenth century texts and solving complex mathematical equations when he was ten years old.

He went over to Katie’s desk. There was a corkboard propped up on top. It was there the night him and Rossi first saw it, but he didn’t really pay much attention to it. Maybe there was something there.

He looked at the corkboard. There were a couple of photos hung up by pushpins.

One was of Katie and her mother at the beach. Reid wished he had a mother-son moment like that.

The other photo was of a birthday party. Another moment Reid wished he had if he had been a normal child. Katie and the other kids were all happy and smiling in the photo. In the background, he could see some adults, some dressed for the weather, one dressed as….a pirate.

_The unsub thinks he’s a pirate._

Reid quickly took the photo and headed downstairs to the living room. The Rodgers were in the living room, still awaiting a ransom call. Police technicians were manning the trap and trace on the phone.

The Rodgers got up off the sofa when they saw Reid come down the stairs. “What is it Dr. Reid?” Wendy Rodgers asked.

“What can you tell me about this photo?” Reid asked, showing them the photo.

“It was a birthday party of one of Katie’s friends,” Dan Rodgers replied. “Julie Bellman. She turned eleven last month. A local party company help put it on.”

“What day?”

“May 25th.”

“Do you know the person in the background?” Reid asked. “The one dressed up as a pirate?”

“No, I don’t,” Wendy Rodgers replied. There was a horrifying realization on her face. “You don’t think that this person – “

“Let’s find out,” Reid said, getting out his cell phone and dialing up Garcia.

She answered, “Garcia’s House of Internet Knowledge, at your service.”

“Garcia, it’s Reid. I need you to look up birthday party companies in Jacksonville.”

“Your command is my wish.” Garcia typed in her request. “We have four such groups in Jacksonville.” 

“The party happened on May 25th. Julie Bellman was the birthday girl.”

Reid could hear her typing from Quantico. “The party was put on by Saint John’s Parties,” Garcia read on the company website. “They help put on parties for your company or for your family.”

“Do they do pirate themes for the kids?”

“Clowns, princesses, and pirates too,” Garcia answered. “Sending you an address now.”

“Check if any of their employees has a record or is a registered pedophile, and if they have a prosthetic hook,” Reid quickly said.

“Will do.”

“Thanks Garcia.” He then called the others at the Jacksonville Police Department and relayed the information.

“That’s good Reid,” Morgan said to him over the phone. “Me and J.J. will go check it out.”

*******************************

Saint John’s Parties had a space in a strip mall that was between downtown Jacksonville and the neighborhood where the kidnapping took place. Morgan and J.J. got out of the SUV and headed for the store. It was close to noon.

“At Henry’s last birthday party, did you hire a pirate or a clown?” Morgan asked J.J.

“Neither,” J.J. replied. “I wasn’t going to hire a clown, especially after arresting that guy from Rossi’s old case.” The two of them had arrested a developmentally disabled man who dressed as a clown at a carnival five years ago in Indianapolis that helped Rossi close a cold case. “And I’m probably not going to do a pirate theme after this.”

They went inside. In front of the store, there was a desk, manned by a secretary. Behind her were some workspaces, as party planners and decorators went over designs and ideas for their upcoming parties.

They went up to the secretary’s desk and showed her their identification badges. “Who’s in charge here?” Morgan asked.

“That would be Fred Baxter,” the secretary replied.

“Can we speak with him?” J.J. asked.

The secretary turned around from her desk and called out her boss’ name. A man in his forties, wearing glasses, and a clown’s hat on top of his head, walked up to them. “What can I do for you?” Fred Baxter asked.

“We’re looking for one of your employees,” Morgan said. He pulled up a photo on his cell phone that Reid had texted him and showed it to Baxter. “He did this party for Julie Bellman last month. He was a pirate.”

Baxter looked at the photo. There was a look of concern on his face.

“That’s not one of our employees,” he said.

“He’s not?” J.J. asked. “Then who is he?”

“That’s what I like to know!” Baxter angrily said. He called out, “Gordie!”, then said to the agents, “Gordie Lawton was helping out on that party.”

A blond haired man came up to Fred Baxter. “What’s up boss?”

“You helped put that party together for Julie Bellman. Who was supposed to be the pirate for that day?”

“That was Walter Gaines.”

“Then who’s this?” Morgan showed him the photo of the pirate.

Lawton looked at the photo. “He was a friend of Walter’s. I don’t know his name. Walter said it was okay for him playing another pirate. They were both playing pirates that day.”

“Do you know his name?” 

“Walter didn’t tell me the guy’s name,” Gordie replied. “He slipped him a few bucks for playing the pirate. That’s all I know.”

J.J. got on her phone and dialed up Garcia. “We need some info on Walter Gaines,” she said to her.

“On it!” Garcia said. A few seconds later, the computer hacker answered, “Gaines is a former sailor, five years in the Navy. A couple of DUI’s on his record. Nothing more…wait a minute. He was a suspect in a kidnapping case but cleared. Seems like he loaned a car to someone who grabbed a twelve year old three years ago, but he insisted he didn’t know about the kidnapping.”

“What did the kidnapper have to say about it?” J.J. asked.

“Nothing. He crashed the car while trying to get away from the police. The kid who got grabbed escaped.”

“And he has both hands still attached?”

“Medical records say so.”

“Current address?”

“Sending it to you now.”

J.J. closed her phone, as Morgan came up to her. “According to Gordie,” he said to her, “Walter’s friend had the pirate role down, right down to the hook on his right hand. And he seemed to take an interest in Julie’s friend Katie Rodgers.”

“Let’s go see Walter Gaines,” said J.J. As they were about to leave, J.J.’s phone rang. It was Garcia.

“What is it Garcia?” J.J. asked.

“Breaking news,” Garcia replied. “I just checked Walter Gaines’ phone records. Earlier today, he got a call from Ronald Vashon after you guys visited him.”


	6. Chapter 6

Reid quickly asked where Julie Bellman lived, which was a few blocks away. Fortunately, she was home, and with her parents present, Reid asked her how the pirate at her birthday party acted when he saw Katie Rodgers.

“It was kind of weird,” Julie said. “He looked at her as if he knew who she was already. How could he know who she was if they never met?” Julie added that the pirate seemed to pay more attention to her than the other kids, though at the time it didn’t seem to creep her out. Now, looking back on it, it was creeping her out.

In the meantime, with Garcia’s discovery that Vashon had called Gaines after Hotchner and Rossi’s visit, Rossi and Hotchner, along with Blake, Captain Innes, and a couple of uniformed officers in police cruisers with sirens blaring, returned for the second time that day to Vashon’s home.

The cruisers and the agents’ SUV pulled up to the Vashon house, and had it surrounded in seconds. Hotchner, Rossi, Blake, and Innes, wearing bullet proof vests and their service weapons drawn, went up to the front door and pounded on it.

“Donald Vashon!” Innes called out. “Open the door! Police!”

A voice inside the house unexpectedly responded, “Come on in.”

The agents and Innes opened the door and entered, their guns at the ready. What they found, was Donald Vashon sitting down on a sofa. On the coffee table in front of him was a thirty two caliber automatic pistol…and his prosthetic hook.

“I’m surrendering,” Vashon said somewhat grumpily.

“So I see,” Rossi said, as two police officers helped him up off the sofa. The stump that used to be his right hand was clearly visible.

“For the record,” Vashon said, “I didn’t know anything about a murder or a kidnapping.”

“So what do you know?” Hotchner asked.

Vashon began, “A friend of mine at the docks –“

“Walter Gaines,” Blake interjected.

“Yeah, Walter,” Vashon said. “Some friend. Anyway, he asks if he could use my hook for a special project. I said sure, since I was getting a new one. I get my new hook, he gets my old one. That was last week. Next thing I know, you guys are telling me there’s a dead girl and someone got kidnapped. I call him up and asked what the hell he got me into! He never told me he was a damn pervert.”

“Did you see him today?” Blake asked.

“No,” Vashon replied. “He told me to relax and he would take care of it. Well, I’m gonna take care of him! I’ll testify to whatever he did. I’m not going down for a murder I didn’t commit.”

“The murder may have been committed by this man,” Blake said. She showed him a picture of the pirate at the birthday party on her cell phone. “Gaines was there. Do you know this man?”

Vashon looked at the picture. “That’s Walter’s friend. I think his name is John Hocklin. Sometimes, Walter called him Captain Hook.”

“Captain Hook, how appropriate,” Rossi remarked.

“He was kind of loopy, if you ask me,” Vashon said. “Walter said John got hit on the head some years back. John was always asking when the Braves were going to win the World Series again.”

An officer read Vashon his Miranda rights as he was handcuffed and led away. “Hocklin sounds like he’s our unsub,” Rossi said. 

“And Gaines is his hired help,” Hotchner added, as he took out his cell phone and dialed up Garcia.

“Garcia here for all your informational needs,” she greeted.

“Our unsub’s name is John Hocklin,” Hotchner said. “Specifically look for when he suffered amnesia.”

“Will do,” Garcia replied. As she typed away, a call came through police channels.

“This is Morgan, we’re here at Walter Gaines home. There’s nobody here.” 

Morgan and J.J., along with other police officers, got a warrant for Walter Gaines as well, and went to his residence.

“So, any guesses where they might be?” Rossi asked, as the police took Vashon away.

“Maybe Garcia will come up with something,” Blake said hopefully.

*******************************

A few minutes later, Garcia called with information on John Hocklin. Her call was put simultaneously through to Morgan and Reid as well, as Hotchner, Rossi, and Blake were headed back to the police station in the SUV.

“Got the information on John Hocklin,” she said from Quantico. “It’s a mixed bag to say the least.”

“Go ahead, baby girl,” Morgan said.

Garcia reported, “John Hocklin, aged 48, from Hilton Head, South Carolina. Both parents died when he was sixteen in a car accident, spent the next two years with an aunt and uncle. Joined the Navy after high school at eighteen, rose to petty officer. He was in his eighth year of service when he was arrested for child endangerment. The incident happened on Charleston Naval Base grounds. The Navy dishonorably discharged him after a court martial.”

“How much time did he spend in prison?” Hotchner asked.

“He didn’t,” Garcia responded. “The dishonorable discharge was enough. He was …. uh, oh.”

“What is it Garcia?”

“Two of the people who testified were the fathers of the first two kidnap victims,” Garcia said.

“This sounds like a revenge killing,” Hotchner said. 

“How does Wendy fit into all this?”

“Her father was a naval captain,” Garcia said. “He was Hocklin’s commanding officer, but he didn’t testify at his court martial.”

“Definite revenge,” Rossi said. 

“Or maybe he got obsessed with her,” Blake said. “He wanted her so bad, he couldn’t help himself.”

“So how did he get his amnesia?” 

“I have his medical records,” Garcia said. “Four years after his court martial, he was in a car accident near Columbia, South Carolina. It was November of 1995. He was in a coma for eight months. He woke up and everything seemed fine, but soon the doctors began to realize he wasn’t able to retain any new memories from when he woke up.”

“He woke up in 1996,” Rossi said. “The Atlanta Braves won the Series in 1995.”

“At least he has one good memory,” Morgan said.

“And apparently, Walter Gaines is Hocklin’s only friend,” Garcia said. “They were in the Navy together. They kept in touch after Hocklin’s court martial, and Gaines has been helping him out since Hocklin got out of the hospital.”

“Does Hocklin have a hook where his right hand should be?” J.J. asked.

“The car accident took Hocklin’s right hand, but he didn’t get the hook until much later,” Garcia continued. “He didn’t have much in the way of health insurance, but he eventually got his prosthetic hook in Mexico. It explains why his name didn’t show up on my initial search.”

“So Gaines and Hocklin eventually end up in Jacksonville,” said Rossi. “Gaines probably went through some odd jobs before landing that party favor gig. Gaines probably lets Hocklin come with him on a job or two, slips him a couple of bucks. Then one day, Gaines and Hocklin work a birthday party and Hocklin, dressed as Captain Hook, sees Katie Rodgers, and his old memories of Wendy kicks in. They both hatch a plot to kidnap Katie for a ransom, but in doing so, leave the baby sitter dead.”

“And Hocklin still thinks Katie is Wendy,” Hotchner said. 

“It doesn’t look good for Katie, does it?” Blake said.

*************************************

Walter Gaines drove his car, a non descript Dodge van, to the parking lot of The Avenues, a shopping complex, south of the main center of Jacksonville. He parked as far away as he could, got out of his van, and weighed his options.

After Vashon’s phone call, he decided to get out, but he had to check in with St. John’s Parties first before anything else. After that, him and John Hocklin took the girl, and got in the van. By his estimation, they missed the cops by about fifteen. Who knows how much he missed them by at work.

But now it was about cutting their losses. They had to get rid of the girl. That wouldn’t be easy given his friend’s attachment to her.

Gaines opened the door and looked inside. There was John, trying to talk to the girl.

“What happened Wendy?” he asked her.

“For crying out loud, stop doing that!” Gaines angrily said. 

The girl, Katie or Wendy, whoever she was, was awake. She was scared and confused about what was going on, but knew she wanted to go home.

John reached out towards her. The metal glistened off his hook as it approached her. The sight of it made Katie move back.

“I’m not going to hurt you Wendy,” he said to her.

“Dammit John!” Gaines reached over and grabbed his arm. “Don’t touch her with that!”

“I wasn’t going to hurt her!” John said back. He looked at Katie.

“We got to give her back,” Gaines said.

“No!” Hocklin exclaimed.

“She’s not Wendy! How many times do I have to tell you?”

Hocklin looked at Katie. It had been many years since he had last seen Wendy, and looking at Katie, he had moments that he knew it wasn’t her. Other times, it was that time in the cabin at Kiawah Island, wheh he had Wendy.

Katie….Wendy…Katie…Wendy….He wanted her to be Wendy. It gave his life meaning, especially after his accident.

“You want Wendy? Fine!” Gaines closed the van door. He took out his burner cell phone and dialed the number. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

*******************************

“Where’s Reid?” Hotchner asked when they returned to the police station.

Morgan checked his watch. It was just after four o’clock. “He’s still at the Rodgers house.”

Rossi’s cell phone rang. “Reid?” His eyes widened in surprise. “We’ll be right down!”

“What is it?” J.J. asked.

“That was Reid. The kidnapper called the Rodgers house.”


	7. Chapter 7

“He called at four o’clock,” Reid said to the agents and Captain Innes as they came into the Rodgers’ home.

“Did you get a recording?” Innes asked.

“It’s all there,” Reid said. 

The technician at the phone monitor played back the phone call.

“Hello there. We have your daughter Katie. You want her back, have twenty thousand dollars in unmarked bills ready. We will tell you where to bring the money. We’ll call back in two hours.”

“We tried to get him to let us talk to Katie,” Wendy Rodgers said, “but he hung up quickly.”

“There was not enough time to trace the call,” the technician said.

“That doesn’t sound like a man who has amnesia,” said Morgan. “Probably the lead man, Gaines.”

Hotchner looked at the Rodgers. “Do you have twenty thousand dollars on hand?”

“Of course not,” Dan Rodgers said.

“This may not be about the money,” Rossi said. “He may want something else.”

“What?” asked Wendy Rodgers.

Quietly, everyone in the room looked at Mrs. Rodgers. She realized what they meant.

“So, where do we get twenty thousand dollars?” J.J. asked.

“We closed a money laundering case a couple of weeks ago,” Captain Innes said. “There was more than one hundred thousand dollars we found. It’s still in the property room.”

“That’ll to do,” Hotchner said. “This will probably be an exchange, somewhere out in the open. But getting Katie back is the priority.”

“And until then,” Rossi said, “we have to wait.”

********************************************

Two hours passed. Captain Innes had gone back to the police station and returned with a gym bag, filled with the twenty thousand dollars. Right at six o’clock, the phone rang.

After the third ring, Hotchner allowed Mrs. Rodgers to answer the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs. Rodgers.” It had to be Walter Gaines. “Do you and your husband have the money?”

“Yes. Please let me talk to Katie!”

There was silence on the other end. Then…

“Mom?”

“Katie!” Mrs. Rodgers cried out. “Are you okay?”

“She’s okay!” Walter Gaines came back on the line. 

“Give her back to us!” 

“Eight o’clock,” he said. “Bayard Conservation Area. Just off Wildwood Drive. There’s a park bench next to a restroom. You bring the money Mrs. Rodgers, and you alone. No cops. Just bring the money and you can have your daughter back.” The line went dead.

“She’s alive, that’s good,” Hotchner said.

“Bayard Conservation, where is that?” Blake asked Innes.

“It’s across the Saint John River,” Innes replied. “It’s protected swampland. There’s some trails but also lots of alligators wandering around there. Not the place to be in the dark, much less sunset.”

“We’ll need to set up on the fly,” Morgan said. “Not much time either.”

“Let’s go,” Hotchner said.

******************************

The agents and the police drove in unmarked cars west across the Saint John River on Highway 16 to the Bayard Conservation Area. The area was heavily inundated with trees emerging up from the muddy, swampy land. Signs along the road into the area warned of alligators that liked to cross the road.

The police placed unmarked cars at both ends of Wildwood Drive, so not to scare off Gaines and Hocklin. The agents, along with Captain Innes and a couple of plain clothes officers, went on foot into the conservation area and found hiding places close to where Gaines wanted to meet.

The Florida sun was low in the western sky as Wendy Rodgers came to the Bayard Conservation Area in her own car. She parked at the area she was told to come to and got out of her car. She carried a small gym bag that contained the twenty thousand dollars. She looked around and went to the bench next to the public restroom. She sat down and waited. It was approaching eight o’clock.

From their hiding places amongst the trees and the bushes, the agents watched Wendy Rodgers as she waited.

Hotchner and Captain Innes were watching from across the road, behind the trees. Forty yards away down the road, J.J. and Rossi were situated. Reid and Morgan were the closest to Wendy Rodgers, thirty yards away and on the same side of the road, with Blake and a couple of plain clothes policemen the same distance away on the opposite side. All had on bulletproof vests.

A report came on through their communicators connected to earbuds.

“White van coming into the park. Stand by.”

“This could be them,” Hotchner said.

The van came into view. It came to a stop in front of the restroom.

Three people got out. Two adults and a ten year old girl, still in her pajamas.

“It’s them,” Hotchner said. “Hold your positions.”

Wendy Rodgers saw them and stood up, clutching the gym bag. Gaines and Hocklin, with Katie between them, approached. Wendy’s face lit up both in relief and horror in seeing her daughter, flanked by the two kidnappers. Both men kept Katie close to them as they walked towards Mrs. Rodgers, who could see the hook where Hocklin used to have his right hand.

A strange feeling crept over her as Wendy Rodgers looked at the man who once kidnapped her many years before, and now kidnapped her own daughter.

Hocklin looked at the woman he once took as a child, now all grown up. But given his mental condition, he had trouble processing that the Wendy he knew as a child and the now adult Wendy were the same person.

Gaines and Hocklin stopped ten feet in front of Wendy Rodgers, as Katie cried out “Mommy!”

“Hold your positions,” Hotchner said again from his hiding place.

“Do you have the money?” Gaines asked.

Wendy Rodgers held up the gym bag. “It’s all here.”

“Bring it over.”

Mrs. Rodgers stepped towards them, keeping an eye on her daughter. Suddenly, Hocklin stepped forward and stood in front of her.

“Wendy?” He looked at her in confused amazement.

She looked at her own and her daughter’s kidnapper. “Yes?” she replied, looking at him. His hair was still dark and he had a scruffy beard. This was the man who kidnapped her all those years ago, still menacing yet somewhat confused.

“Dammit, John let her be!” Gaines said.

“Wendy,” he said, still confused. “How did this happen?”

“Please, I just want my daughter back –“

“Wendy,” Hocklin said again. He raised his hook, trying to touch her with it. “Is it really you?”

“Yes it’s me! Please, give me back my Katie!”

Gaines was quickly losing patience. “John, just take the money and we’ll go!”

Mrs. Rodgers tried to get past Hocklin but again he blocked her way. “I don’t want to lose you again,” he said to her.

That was it for Gaines. He shoved Hocklin out of the way and grabbed the gym bag from her. Katie ran over to her mother, crying as she put her arms around her.

“I’m not losing her!” Hocklin said, suddenly grabbing Wendy Rodgers. Gaines reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small caliber revolver.

“GO! GO!” Hotchner ordered.

The agents and the police officers sprang up out of their hiding places, their service weapons drawn and pointed at Gaines and Hocklin.

“Drop the gun NOW!” Morgan ordered.

Gaines looked around and saw the officers coming at him outnumbered him. 

“NO!” Hocklin screamed out. He tried to pull Wendy Rodgers away, but she wouldn’t let go of her daughter. 

Gaines quickly dropped the gun and held up his hands. 

“ON YOUR KNEES! NOW!” Morgan demanded, his gun aimed at Gaines head. Gaines did what he was told, not wanting a third eye in his head.

Hocklin still had hold of Wendy Rodgers, as she was also trying to hold on to her daughter Katie. He was pulling them away, as she tried break free of his hold.

Hotchner pointed his gun at Hocklin. “Let her go!” he ordered.

“NO! NO!” Hocklin shouted back. “She’s mine! I won’t lose her again!”

“Mommy!” Katie cried out.

“Let them go!” Hotchner repeated. No one could risk firing a shot at Hocklin. His hook was hovering close to Wendy Rodgers’ face.

Morgan and a couple of police officers had Gaines down on the ground. Everyone else was concentrated on Hocklin, still holding on to Wendy Rodgers.

“Katie! Come to us!” J.J. called out, as the lawmen moved closer to Hocklin.

“Run Katie!” Wendy Rodgers cried out.

Katie let go of her mother and ran towards J.J. and Blake. J.J., ever the mother, holstered her weapon and quickly grabbed Katie to get her out of harm’s way.

Hocklin continued to pull Wendy Rodgers away from them, edging closer to the woods and swamp. “You can’t have her!” he yelled. “I won’t let her go. She’s mine!” The hook was too close to head for any of the officers to shoot. 

Suddenly, he turned and ran, forcing Wendy to run with him into the swamp.

Captain Hook had his Wendy all to himself and Peter Pan was nowhere in sight.


	8. Chapter 8

Rossi, Reid, and Blake ran into the swamp after Hocklin and Wendy Rodgers. The sun was setting in the west, darkening the surrounding area, making the chase even more perilous. They aimed their flashlights ahead, while holding the guns at the ready.

“He’s waited all his life to get Wendy back, and he won’t let her go without a fight,” Rossi said as they ran. 

“That goes without saying,” Blake said. “I guess he’s now realized that Wendy is all grown up.”

The ground was soft as the agents kept going through the wooded area. Water and mud intermingled with swamp grass amid the lumpy terrain.

Up ahead, Hocklin kept moving, dragging Wendy Rodgers along.

“Keep moving!” he ordered. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Where?” Wendy Rodgers asked, trying to keep up.

“Neverland. Where the other ones are.”

To her, this was a twisted fairy tale turned sideways. A pedophile who was pretending he was a pirate with a hook, taking hostage a girl who he still can’t believe grew up. 

They kept going through the swamp, their feet splashing in the mud and water.

Some yards back, Rossi, Reid, and Blake continued the chase. 

“Reid, go the right, Blake to the left,” Rossi said. The other two agents did so. Rossi knew that Hotchner and Captain Innes would have the conservation area sealed up so Hocklin wouldn’t be able to escape, and Morgan would be soon joining the pursuit.

Farther up, Hocklin and Wendy were making their way, when he suddenly stopped.

He saw the alligator in the water ahead, crawling towards them.

That’s when Wendy hit Hocklin on the side of his head. It was enough for him to let go, as Wendy broke free from his grasp. She began to run in the opposite direction, as Hocklin staggered for a couple of steps before regaining his balance.

“Wendy!” he cried out. “No!” He began to look in the encroaching darkness for her, finally spotting her running away from her.

Wendy ran, trying to stay upright as best she could. As she ran, her mind flashed back to being ten years old running down that desolate road away from her kidnappers, fearing if she stopped, she would be found and never see her daughter grow up.

She looked back as she ran. Darkness was settling in. She couldn’t tell how far back he was. In fact she couldn’t tell where she was. She turned forward again…and ran into someone.

“Mrs. Rodgers, it’s me! Agent Rossi!” 

Wendy gasped in relief. “I got away from him,” she quickly said. “But he’s still back there.”

Rossi said into his radio communicator, “Hotch! I have Wendy Rodgers. Hocklin is still in the swamp.”

Blake responded on her radio, “Shine your light so I can see where you are.”

Rossi did. “I see you,” Blake responded. 

“I’m getting her out of here,” Rossi said. “Reid, where are you?”

Upon hearing that Wendy Rodgers had been found by Rossi, Reid turned around and began to go in the opposite direction, mindful that Hocklin was still in the vicinity. The boy genius pointed his flashlight ahead to see ahead. He could see another light ahead, and a couple of figures ahead in the darkness.

“I see you Reid,” Rossi said.

Reid quickly and carefully moved towards Rossi and Wendy.

Suddenly, he heard the grass rustle a few feet away.

Reid turned to his right. Hocklin emerged out of darkness, charging at Reid, his right arm raised to strike.

Reid fired a shot at him, but it missed, as Hocklin barreled into him. Fortunately, Reid’s arms went up as Hocklin’s right arm came down. Reid’s arms blocked the oncoming hook just inches from his face, as the two tumbled to the ground. Reid’s gun and flashlight hit the ground as well, as they were just inches from the water.

The two were clinched up as Hocklin tried to bring the hook down on Reid. He was on his back, but Reid had both hands on the prosthetic, trying to keep it away from his face. He was practically staring right at it, as Hocklin tried to cut Reid any way he could.

Reid knew he wasn’t the most physically adept agent, but he surely didn’t want to go out like this. Both his hands twisted the base of the hook, turning the point away from him. The twist made Hocklin cry out in pain.

Reid pulled on the prosthetic. Much to his surprise, the prosthetic hook came off at the wrist. The stump of Hocklin’s arm came down on Reid but with hardly any impact. With the hook in both hand, Reid slashed it across Hocklin’s face. He screamed out, as he clutched at his face with his only available hand. 

As he grabbed at his own face, Reid pushed Hocklin off of him, and rolled in the opposite direction, quickly scanning for his gun and flashlight. There was another scream, followed by the splashing of water, and more screams.

Reid saw his flashlight and grabbed it. He shined the light and he could see his gun, but before he could pick it up, he shined his light at the water, which was being splashed about amid a scream and a dull growl.

“Reid!” Rossi called out. 

“Over here!” Reid returned. Rossi and Blake made their way to him, as Reid, still on the ground, kept looking at where his flashlight was shining.

“Where’s Hocklin?” Blake asked. Then her and Rossi saw it.

There was an alligator, halfway out of the water, as water was being thrashed about. Hocklin was also in the water…sort of. A good portion of him was in the alligator’s mouth, as his thrashing about was slowly ceasing.

“Just like the story,” Blake remarked.

“Actually, it was a crocodile who ate Captain Hook at the end of the story,” Reid said, trying to catch his breath. “But at this point, I’m willing to overlook that.”

******************************

Morgan had come into the swamp and brought out Wendy Rodgers, taking her to the paramedics, which has just arrived on the scene. They had just finished up with her daughter, and was examining Wendy, when Reid, Rossi, and Blake emerged from the swamp. Reid’s clothes were caked with dirt and swamp.

Soon, Reid was being examined by the paramedics, as Rossi filled the others in on what had happened in the swamp.

“Boy genius ripped the guy’s hand off?!” Morgan said in disbelief. “That’s one for the books.”

“And Hocklin?” Hotchner asked.

“An alligator had him for dinner,” Rossi replied. Even so, a pair of coroners had gone into the swamp to retrieve the body, or what was left of it.

As the paramedics were examining Reid, J.J. brought Katie to Wendy. A police car had brought Dan Rodgers to the scene.

“Mommy!” Katie joyfully cried out as she ran into her mother’s arms. Wendy Rodgers sobbed as she held her daughter. A nightmare that had lasted twenty two years, and involved mother and daughter, was finally over. Soon, Dan Rodgers joined his family reunion.

Captain Innes came over to Hotchner and the other agents. “Walter Gaines is on his way to headquarters,” he reported. “He’ll be charged with murder and kidnapping.”

The police captain thanked the agents for their help, then Rossi and Morgan went over to Reid. The paramedics had just finished up with him.

“Feeling okay?” Morgan asked.

“I now have this sudden urge to avoid alligator products,” Reid replied. “Maybe even eating alligator meat. Especially after tonight.”

“I don’t blame you.” Morgan said.

The Rodgers family came over to Reid and Morgan. 

“I just like to say thank you,” Wendy Rodgers said to them. 

“You’re welcome,” Morgan said back.

The two coroners emerged from the swamp with a gurney. The body that was on top of it was draped by a blanket. The Rodgers looked on as the coroners opened the back of the station wagon to load it in.

As they loaded the corpse in, there was a clank. Hocklin’s prosthetic hook had fallen out to the ground. One of the coroners nonchalantly picked it up, put it on top of the draped corpse, and put Hocklin’s body into the back of the wagon.

“So, what now?” Reid asked.

“I’m going to live the rest of my life without worrying about him anymore,” Wendy Rodgers replied. “Katie has a birthday next month. She’ll be eleven years old.”

Ten year old Katie looked at Reid. The boy genius agent smiled back at her.

“What’s your name?” she asked innocently.

Before Reid could answer, Morgan replied with a smile, “Peter Pan.”

The following morning, the agents were on their way back to Quantico.

*************************

Three weeks later, under a sunny sky in Jacksonville, Katie Rodgers celebrated her eleventh birthday. The friends that had been invited knew about her ordeal but were told by their parents not to bring it up.

The party had been organized by Katie’s parents. There would be no pirates, adult or otherwise, at this party.

After all the games, and the cake and ice cream that had been served, Katie’s parents doled out the presents for their daughter. There were the usual clothes, shoes, and dolls, as well as a new One Direction CD. One of the Jacksonville Jaguars football players had heard about her ordeal and sent Katie an autographed jersey.

But there was also a gift that was sent by Doctor Spencer Reid from Washington DC.

Katie unwrapped it. When she saw what it was, she instantly loved it, as did her parents.

The book was entitled, “Peter Pan.”

____________________________________

J.M. Barrie wrote _“To die would be an awfully great adventure.”_ He also wrote, _“To live would be an awfully great adventure.”_


End file.
